Webmaster Motu and The Machines of Human Suffering

Webmaster Motu is back.. and he is Banging….:P.. That sounds corny, but hey, life is like a bowl of sweet corn vegetable soup, the best bits are all lying at the bottom. The subject line refers to those dreaded places us mere mortals decide to visit when the seams of our best shirt seem to be coming apart like noodles, and you just don’t fit into that new expensive pair of jeans that you bought. The girl’s give you a second look, cause they can’t believe a human being can actually wobble, roll and yaw at the same time. The old uncles (Any male above the age of 30 and not related to you directly as Father, Brother , automatically becomes your “Uncle” ; Oh! how i love ye, the queen’s language with the Indian Tadka!) are looking at you and thinking “What is this world coming to? I wonder how he’ll look when he’s my age? Shaa!! This young hip hop generation all they do is eat junk food and drink carbonated poison” .

Yes! You guessed right! {If you did not Shame on you || (referred to as or in programming languages) you really don’t need to visit this place( which is a good thing)} (See!! nested parentheses. I love them :-))

I’m talking about the Gymnasium, or “The Gym”.

Its done !!! After 4 years of procrastination(For people who think that means advanced castration, it means delaying something by making up reasons..:P) , I have finally enrolled myself into one. Let me explain to you, how.

It all started when I woke up one day and realized I’m fat. End of story. The next day I was at the nearest Gym (Less effort to walk to and from) and joined up. The gym-owner was pretty convincing (made me pay 3 months advance fees (well he knows I wouldn’t continue if I didn’t have the ceremonial carrot (I mean which Indian would want to waste hard earned money))). This brings us to the night before D-day (first day of gym). I, knowing full well, that I would have to control my diet (Stop eating sweets and chocolates) and the binge eating (Stress eating, eating for fun, eating in sadness, Eating because it’s time to eat, eating because someone said its time to eat, eating because there’s something to eat, eating because no one else is eating,Eating because its a party, Eating because its free, eating because……Well you get a rough idea..:-P) I decided to go out with a friend of mine and did all the eating and merry making I could ( OK may be not all but yeah add Eating because a friend is giving you company to the list). I reached home around 12 and thought to myself “Damn!! how am I going to get up tomorrow morning.?” Well the next thing I did is try to put on an old T shirt of mine and it just wouldn’t fit. Well that was the final straw. The gym would never see a more gruesome site. I had declared war on it ( And decided I could have one last chocolate before I stopped for good (Last chocolate ever)) .

Time :05:00 am.

Day 1.

I woke up with a start, I had this dream that a giant dumbbell was rolling down the road and I was running ahead of it.Just when I was about to be crushed under I woke up and realized there’s still 15 minutes to spare before my alarm went off. So I did the most logical thing, Changed the alarm to half an hour ahead and went to sleep.

The next time I woke up, was to the incessant ringing of my alarm tone. I promptly snoozed the alarm ( may be a couple of times but finally better reasoning prevailed (it was probably my bowels crying foul, but I’s like to see myself as the hero here. so better reasoning prevailed it is). I was up and prepared myself for the long arduous walk / run to the gym for the first time in my life. I was in a pair of shorts and a T shirt and carried my kit with me. Little did I realize that the December/ January season isn’t called Winter season or the cold season for the heck of it. The Cold was excruciating. My feet and hands and face were numb by the time I got to the gym. The warm air inside thawed me out, and I was back in the mood.

Now to think that joining a gym is a walk in the park or a piece of cake (That i wouldn’t mind..:-P), is not really the best thing to do. It’s like joining a new school in the middle of the school year. You’re the new kid and everyone’s looking at you as if you just soiled your pants. I met the trainer and he asked me to change in to my gear (which was just wearing a pair of canvas shoes I had purchased for this very purpose about 2 years ago). The next thing he asked me is have you attended a gym before or done any kind of exercise? (Now looking at me any body will feel the same), and I promptly replied “Yes! I used to play football and cricket in college. I used to train hard every morning.” What I failed to mention was that was a long time ago. But hey, I did so that’s what I told him. The trainers aren’t dumb. They know who is in how much water ( A direct translation of the Hindi adage “Kaun Kitna Paani Mein Hai“). He was as prompt as me in replying, Hit the floor give me ten push-ups. At this point all my enthusiasm vanished. Ten Push-ups !!! Ten!!! I’d be lucky if I could get past three. So I took out my age old tried and tested weapon of choice – “My shoulder is dislocated”, I said. “Thrice” I added jsut to be on the safer side. Then I got the usual barrage of questions – when, how why..etc. etc.etc. The trainer asked me to start off with stretches and some light skipping. I managed to stretch parts of my legs I didn’t know I had. That’s when the fun started (Not if you were me).

The trainer demonstrated how to skip, and he was doing a good job too. He was doing some 100 RPM i believe. Then he handed me the skip rope and asked me to do the same. I started skipping, or so I thought. All I could do was one lousy skip. The next rotation I got tangled in the rope, and this continued for the next ten times. All this time the other members of the gym were staring at me like I was some kind of fresh meat at the prison (Its like when a new inmate arrives, who gets to be his fatherly figure of the “Who’s your Daddy”? kind…;-P).

A word about the other members. There are the pros – these people couldn’t care less, who’s making a fool of themselves. They partner up with other Gym buddies and carry on with their regime, occasionally giving you the look and smile. Then there are those who are just below pro but not amateurs. You’ll find a lot of these at the gym. They hang out in groups, all the time cracking jokes about who did less sets or who’s next in line for the bench. These guys usually loo at you and make you feel miserable just by looking. (Didn’t work with me. I still went the next day.) Some of these guys will give you pointers. They tell you how to go about the first week. Most of them sit back and enjoy the show. (fat dude trying to skip jiggling his belly.!! Now that you have that image in your mind lets move on). Then there are the amateurs – These guys have either joined the week before or a month and act as if they’ve been exercising there for years. they are the wannabe’s who keep checking for those non-existent biceps. The next category is the Uncles (Please refer above for definition). The gym uncles are a class apart. they are usually the pot bellied T shirt wearing uncles who aren’t getting the chance to get naughty because of the spare tractor tires they’re carrying. They’re there because someone has dangled a Get-naughty-with-me-if-you-lose-the-Tyre carrot in front of them. They look at someone like me and think “If only better sense had prevailed and I had joined the gym at his age.” or ” He must not be getting to do naughty-naughty too” . They’ll do a few stretches, some twisting on the twister and then start walking on the treadmill. They start sweating in the first two minutes and are gasping for breath in the next five. (I may be exaggerating a bit here. No offense meant to any of the uncles who’re reading. (Self Preservation is all)).

With the circus over (The amazing skipping Hippo) the trainer asked me to climb aboard the twister. This is a machine where you can learn to twist.(The dance style where you twist at the waist whilst keeping your upper body straight) No explanation needed there. I twisted for ten minutes until I started feeling woozy. The trainer put me in the treadmill next. He explained how to use the tread mill (Yes. you have to learn how to use one. there are different buttons and presets and setting. You should do a RTFM (Read The Freaking Manual) before you use one) I started walking and the pace was very slow. So I increased the speed. Slowly but steadily I brought the speed up-to normal walking speed. Walking on a treadmill can be tricky. You have to concentrate on your steps, or end up trying to balance yourself and fall flat on your face with a mouth full of treadmill. Now this particular treadmill has a incline setting. So I being the enthusiastic gymmer and all, increased the incline to a higher setting. After about 3 minutes I realized I was actually finding it difficult to keep my next step straight. I started feeling dizzy cause the treadmill makes you walk continuously in a repetitive manner, which can cause you to lose your footing (Just like you get disoriented after turning around in circle very fast. I got off the treadmill after about ten minutes and immediately felt like I was still running. My head was still spinning and weirdly not in a circular motion but an elliptical one. (I leave it as an exercise for the readers to figure out the meaning of this statement) At this point the trainer saw me and said “that’s enough for day one, Take it slow the first week and then we can start light weights.” Boy was I relieved or what. I packed up my gear (Took off my shoes) and took a sip of water ( yeah i carried that with me) and immediately went to the weighing machine. One day of exercise (45 min to be precise) and I was hoping to have shed a few grams at least. When i stood on the machine I got a shock. I was weighing more than I was at the time of admission the day before. Then I realized it must be all the food I had the night before, saying its going to be my last splurge before the “gymbargo” (Just like guys and girls get naughty giving going away for a long time as the reason). Well I wasn’t happy. I expected to shed at least a few grams. So I went downstairs and had breakfast (Did I mention Eating because you aren’t happy in the list?)

That pretty much sums up my first day at the gym.

What will happen in the coming days only time will tell (with a little help from Facebook of course ). Till then this is Webmaster Motu signing off.

Ctrl-Alt-Del.

PS: As you might have noticed I love to use my parentheses, and as every programmer should do I believe in proper nesting of statements {(Like for (example))}.